Wed’day 18th November Day 14 lockdown

Going anywhere near a hospital makes R nervous, probably due to the amount of time over the years he has ended up in a hospital bed. So he left the Holiday Inn to walk to the Nuffield (fyi varicose veins are no longer available on the NHS unless you are in considerable pain!) feeling rather anxious. 3 hours later a much happier man emerged. Meanwhile I went for a walk around the outside of Guildford catherdral and just managed to escape the rain that followed, relieved to be outside! As we had no car R had to walk back to the hotel (walking lots is encouraged after a vv procedure). Asked to describe what it felt like he said ‘imagine running through a bramble hedge with running shorts on’ – it was more uncomfortable than he had anticipated. So he spent the afternoon resting and then recovering with more TV and a takeaway from one Guildford’s Indian restaurants, rated No 1 on tripadvisor. It was delicious.

For me another walk in the afternoon with a friend who had kindly collected prescriptions, post and my stash of Christmas cards to write (discovered earlier in the year in the loft when I had a good clear out!). The post included a new pair of short wellies – last week I found out the hard way that the pair I had on the boat, and had solidly been wearing day in day out were splitting and letting in both water and mud. And a new hat for R. You may remember we have had a bit of an issue with hats, feeling especially sad that R’s Australian wide brimmed rainhat went overboard along with him. So a bit of extra luggage to take back to the already full boat.